


Imperfections

by Bumblepuppy



Category: Dragalia Lost (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Death, Fluff and Angst, M/M, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19232119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblepuppy/pseuds/Bumblepuppy
Summary: Two broken men find comfort in one another.





	1. of the Scholar

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever have one of those days that's really bad so you decide to take it out by hurting characters you like? I sure did!

“You’re too good for me,”

It was said quietly, almost inaudible under the rush of water pouring from the faucet. When he had first brought up the topic of bathing together, Curran was imagining something more titillating. Heinwald sitting in his lap and massaging his chest as he ran his fingers through his partner’s white-streaked hair—anything, really, besides the somber reality of how Heinwald maintained his broken body. Curran had seen him naked plenty of times before this, though compared to their bedroom escapades, this was sobering. 

“My servants usually help me with this, but I thought it was something that you should know as well.” It was only natural to care for a partner’s ailments, right? Wounds needed mending, fevers needed treatment… in the same vein, the more permanent issues needed attention, needed a caring hand to smooth away the pain—even if all hope of the pain disappearing was lost. 

Heinwald had produced a small jar from one of the bathroom’s shelves, unscrewing its lid and showing the contents to Curran. “This salve helps best to prevent my nerves from being dulled. And this tincture,” he pulled a bottle down from the same shelf, taking the cork out, “I need to prevent my flesh from… decaying…” his voice trailed uncertainly, his gaze turning from his partner’s face. “It’s best to use in water, as it’s good at disinfecting any fresh wounds I might not have noticed.” His brow tightened as he pushed the medicines into Curran’s hands. “I can’t get my back myself, so I was hoping that wouldn’t be too difficult for you.”

_If he doesn’t pass out from disgust first._  
  
This was the first time that he had described what sort of rituals he needed to keep his body from falling apart, Curran’s face traveled through a number of emotions—pity, shame, and eventually, a non-forced smile. “It’s no rubble. This is where our relationship is.” The inquisitor extended an arm, placing it on his partner’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. His eyes still focused on the floor, but Curran noticed a smirk on his lips. “…I said it wrong, didn’t I?”  
  
It wasn’t something he had ever asked about. He was curious, sure, but it seemed too personal—too _raw_ —to ask his partner about his appearance. His patches of corpse-like flesh, held together with inconspicuous stitches, were unlike anything he’d seen on another human, and often had the effect of scaring others. Curran had been afraid to make any sort of physical contact with Heinwald when they had first met, shuddering whenever his right hand would brush against his own. He looked back on those moments with shame—embracing his partner’s mottled skin was a hallmark moment of their intimacy. He couldn’t imagine life without running his fingers against the stitches that ran along his torso, without pressing his lips to the seam that held his neck together, without hearing the sharp breaths Heinwald took through his clenched teeth as Curran touched him with such warmth…

He probably didn’t _have_ to get in the bathtub with him, but it felt more natural than attending to Heinwald’s needs from the outside. It was probably what he was used to for his whole life—he was a nobleman after all, despite his eccentricities—and making the situation personal was more fitting than remaining outside. Besides, Heinwald was a slight man. Sitting in Curran’s lap for about an hour was manageable, and something Curran wished would happen more often.

The water lapped at their knees as it filled the tub. Heinwald was silent, fidgeting with the elaborate layout of pins placed in his hair to prevent it from getting in the water (“Of course I don’t wash my hair in the medicine-contaminated water!” he hissed when Curran teased him over his pin-arranging, “That would be disgusting!”). Curran held his hand over Heinwald’s. “Don’t mess with them, they’re staying in place just fine.” It was an attempt to get any conversation started, though it probably wasn’t the best. Anything was better than Heinwald’s vulnerability being met and cared for in a cold silence—even when they were bickering, their banter felt more comfortable than a drawn out pause.

 

 

 

 

 

He had been weak since birth. His parents had conceived him towards the end of their childbearing years, and this had been cited as the source for most of his ailments. Nearly blind without glasses, unable to walk for long distances without wheezing and intense chest pains, limbs and joints that constantly ached—the list went on. When he had lost most of his hearing in his left ear in his early teenage years, it was chalked up to the same issue. His parents were too old when they had him, he was born premature, he would never be fit to govern and they should just be grateful that his much healthier older sister could take the mantle—and so on, and so forth. 

Books were always there for him. They wouldn’t care if he was too sickly or in pain to go outside, they would always be right on his bedside table (or scattered along his desk, or tucked under his blankets, or sitting on the shelves of his father’s library), waiting for him to turn to a new page and venture through their stories. He may not have had any sort of reference for how ocean voyages or sword battles played out, but his stories let him explore the world from his bed. Whenever there was doubt in his mind about how something was handled in a story, non-fiction books had answers for him. It had almost reached the point of obsession—quill scribbled notes were stuffed into storybooks with citations on from other stories, explaining how feasible it would have been to do the described action. 

“Father will be angry with you if he sees all of this, Heinwald.” his sister warned. She was fifteen years his senior and, as such, found herself having little in common with her younger brother. Affection was rare in the manor, and the siblings rarely expressed it beyond coexisting in the same space. In the same vein, protecting him from their father’s wrath was another way to show that she cared.

“I wonder if he’s even read some of these,” he muttered, thumbing through the pages of a heavy tome, “This one’s about utilizing black mana for one’s own power—about how to channel it through your own body.” His sister’s lips curled into a grimace at this.

“No… and you probably shouldn’t be reading them, either.” Heinwald’s interest in magic wasn’t anything to fear on its own—their family did have a few successful mages in it, after all—but black mana was a dangerous substance. His childhood was already restricted by his condition, and the maddening effects of working with such a cursed medium would only make things worse.

 

 

 

 

The tincture was chartreuse in color, opaque, and smelled strongly of spearmint and sulfur. When it came in contact with Heinwald’s body, it ran clear off until it encountered a flaw. Every knick, bruise, and stitch found itself covered with a thick layer of the liquid. Almost as quickly as he noticed it, it seemed to disappear, being absorbed into his injuries.

“I know, it’s pretty gross,”  
  
“You’re the guy who keeps preservation jars filled with weird frogs on your desk, and _this_ is what you think is gross?” Curran couldn’t hide the smirk creeping on his face. Sure, Heinwald might’ve been more vulnerable than he’d seen him before, but seeing him act meek—especially about what he considered ‘gross’—was just bizarre. This was the guy who tried to convince the inquisitor that he should help him carry a fungus-covered mutant deer skull home home because it was ‘interesting’, for Ilia’s sake! Heinwald playfully nudged him with his elbow.

Curran hadn’t realized how many scratches found themselves unhealed in his partner’s patchy skin. Deep wounds were one thing, Heinwald could localize spells to the affected area and make it look as good as new. These wounds were smaller things—an itch that was scratched a little too hard, a bruise from carrying too much in his knapsack, even some thin indents that Curran had assumed were twigs that had been under their tent when they were camping once. “There are so many little wounds back here,” he said, tracing what seemed to be a scar from a shirt button, “Can’t you heal these as well?”  
  
Heinwald sighed. “I can, but I tend not to know when they even appear. They don’t hurt me… I don’t even feel them when they’re formed.”  
  
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He had told Curran that he didn’t have as much feeling in his affected skin, but how little it took for marks to scar it was something else. His arm and face didn’t have the same issue as he could monitor their condition, but his back was another story. Heinwald cleared his throat.  
  
“…That’s why the tincture is important. The smallest puncture could lead to my skin rotting and falling off of my body,” Curran was stunned into silence as his partner forced a bitter laugh. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”  
  
  


 

  
It was all his fault.  
  
Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye to it?  
  
In the weeks following his sister’s suicide, he had become reckless. He had never wanted to be a lord—he had never even considered it an option—yet here he was, the heir apparent to a title with its most recent history stained in blood.  
  
It wasn’t that he _wanted_ to die. He simply didn’t want to exist. Turning back time was impossible, but perhaps a situation where his entire family had simply disappeared was possible. No corrupt father screwing over his people for his own money, no murder plots to overthrow the corrupt father, and no meddling younger brothers to stick their noses where the police didn’t, solving the case and sending a good-intentioned man to his grave.  
  
He liked to imagine that situation, at least.  
  
He spent most of his days in his lab now. His servants would drag him out periodically to make sure he was eating and sleeping in an actual bed, but apart from those scant moments he was reciting spells, drawing runes that he found in old grimoires, and filling the cauldron with arcane ingredients to see if anything would happen.

“Everyone grieves in their own way.” A butler muttered as Heinwald closed the door behind him.  
  
“Master Heinwald is only sixteen! He has a lot to think about. Let him have his time alone.” A maid responded.

There was comfort in the low light emitted from the cauldron’s flames. The oversized windows of the manor made the sunlight’s reflection harsh, especially when it bounced off the gaudily decorated frames of family portraits. In comparison, the dimly lit laboratory calmed his addled mind and helped him to find some semblance of peace.  
  
However, he was still reckless.  
  
He couldn’t remember how exactly he had messed up. He forgot to add equal amounts of marsh flower and iodine, perhaps, or maybe the ratio of limestone to iron ore was off. The reaction was too fast for him to reflect on, sending him flying onto the stone floor. Lifting himself off the ground was difficult—his body felt even weaker than usual— _askew_. He tried pushing himself up with his arms, but his right arm was useless in this endeavor. Feebly, he turned his head to the side to see what was the matter.  
  
His jaw dropped. Though the cauldron’s light did little to illuminate the entirety of the room, he could plainly see that there was no longer an arm attached to his right shoulder. It didn’t _feel_ like it was missing—and from what he could see, it wasn’t lying on the (bloodless? It should be covered in blood right now, shouldn’t it?) floor—but no matter how he tried to move it, it was futile. He shifted his weight to his left arm, thanking Ilia for the first time in ages that it was still attached to him.  
  
Most of the blast had hit his face and chest. He didn’t dare imagine how much of a mess he must’ve looked like.  
  
He was reckless. He landed himself in an awful situation and wanted out. But now that disappearing seemed to be a very literal solution, he was having second thoughts. Maybe he could make things better—if not for himself, for the people who had survived under his father’s tyranny for the better half of a century. Maybe his sister’s fiancé’s plot wasn’t in vain—he could improve the lives of many. He didn’t know what he was doing, but maybe, just maybe, it was possible to learn from this mistake. To make things better.  
  
Maybe being alive wasn’t so bad.  
  
Crawling across the room was difficult with only one arm (and one leg, he realized, as a familiarly dull sensation spiraled from his left hip as he began moving). The floor was a mess—books and parchment everywhere—but surely there was something he could use to write on the stone floor…

A small stick of charcoal rolled in front of him as he shuffled some parchment around. Good enough.

The circle might’ve been shaky, but he had the runes memorized by heart. It was a shot in the dark, but if there were any beings that would answer to his summon, it would be his best chance of staying alive. Creatures older than time itself, that existed in the spaces between worlds, archaic and confusing entities that didn’t follow the intricate moral codes that humans laid out for themselves…

A violet light bloomed from the summoning circle. Though he could see nothing, the lab was filled with an encompassing presence. A voice spoke, but Heinwald did not hear it as much as he felt it—in his skull, in the hollows of his chest.

_“Our link to this world is weak.”_  
  
“Please…” His voice had never sounded so quiet. So fragile. “Please, I don’t want to die.”  
  
A noise that rumbled like thunder. Was the presence laughing?  
  
_“If you are willing to be a vessel for us, then we can spare you.”_  
  
What did that even mean? He swallowed, trying to make his voice sound less weak.  
  
“I-I accept!”  
  
Another rumble of laughter.  
  
_“Very well.”_  

Moments later, he was out cold.  


 

 

 

 

“You’ve got your front, right?”  
  
“How incompetent do you think I am, you oaf?! Of course I can wash my own front!”  
  
It was a welcome change of pace from the discussion of his partner’s flesh rotting off. Though he was initially unsure of the arrangement at first, Curran was now having a little too much fun. His head was resting on Heinwald’s shoulder, pecking kisses onto his cheek whenever he turned his face close enough to be in range.  
  
“I can’t believe you!” An innocent turn to adjust a washcloth put him right in line for Curran’s ceaseless attack. The scholar’s mouth strained to not form a smile. He would not let Curran win.  
  
“You’re just so cute when you pout!” One of the inquisitor’s burly arms wrapped itself around Heinwald’s waist, pulling him closer. “Besides, this is far from a small tub. You’re wasting it if you aren’t going to have a little bit of fun inside!” Another cheek peck. Heinwald’s serious façade was about to break.

“Stoooopppp!” He pleaded, an airy giggle escaping his lips as his partner pulled him close. “You weren’t supposed to have fun with this!”

 

 

 

 

 

“Master Heinwald! You’re awake!”  
  
Everything felt fuzzy. Numb. His left eye opened to harsh sunlight, and his right to a gauze covering. How long had he been asleep? He lifted his right arm to touch his face, feeling the weight of bandaged fingers against the gauze. He seemed to be in one piece, at least.  
  
“Easy, easy, just rest for now,” The maid gently placed her hands around his arm, lowering it back to his side. “You’ve been unconscious for a few days—we were so worried about you!” Tenderly, she smoothed his hair. Without his glasses, he could only see a mass of colors and movement where the maid sat. He had wondered if the incident he remembered after the cauldron backfired had been a figment of his imagination. Maybe the blow had knocked him out cold, and everything that followed was his injured mind’s attempt to piece things together. 

All it took was the peeling of his bandages to reveal that this was not the case. “We aren’t sure what happened,” the butler told the nurse inspecting his master’s arm. “We heard an explosion from his lab, and we found him like this.”  
  
“Odd…” The nurse murmured. “This isn’t what you usually see from lab accidents. Even chemical burns _look_ like burns, but this looks like a corpse’s arm.” He frowned, getting a closer look at Heinwald’s wrist. “It’s _decaying_.” 

His eyes darted around the room nervously. “I—I don’t know what happened.” He hoped the nurse didn’t push the question further. Even if Heinwald was conscious for a while after the explosion, he wouldn’t believe what happened afterwards. And in the case that the nurse _did_ believe that the young nobleman had summoned an otherworldly being to avoid death… well, having an inquisitor from the church poking around wouldn’t make things better for anyone.

The nurse released his grip on Heinwald’s arm and sighed. “I’m sure this isn’t the first case of… _this_ happening to a still-living person. I’ll see if our doctor has anything that can treat this. Be more careful in the lab from now on, alright?”  
  
Treatment wasn’t as simple as he thought it would be. The doctors had prescribed him enough medicine to keep him from rotting alive, but it wasn’t as simple as a daily pill. If he applied too much of the tincture, he’d have to worry about the slightest scratch tearing through to his bones. Too little, and his skin could disintegrate. The affected areas were numb, and he wouldn’t realize how serious a bump or bruise could be until he inspected it closely. Holding a door open too abruptly resulted in a few of his fingers falling off, leading to the patches being reinforced with stitching. Preventative measures. 

_But at least I’m alive._

It wasn’t long before his first servant left. He wasn’t angry with her—he probably frightened most of them, after all—but it started a trend amongst his employees. They claimed that the manor was haunted, that even in their dreams they saw the ghastly creatures. Even the more stubborn attendants—the ones who had served under his father before he was even born—eventually left the manor. He had new attendants to serve him, at least. He would only catch them moving in his peripheral vision, but they would do everything that his old staff used to do: make sure he ate, make sure he slept on his bed and not on the floor of his lab, treating his sensitive patches of skin…

 

 

 

 

 

“No, the salve goes on _after_ I get out of the bath,” he stood up, steadying himself with his hand on Curran’s shoulder, “it works best when my skin is still damp.” Curran put his own hand over Heinwald’s, letting his partner find his balance before he pulled the plug out of the bathtub. The water level had barely lowered when he had lifted himself out of the tub, draping a nearby bathrobe over his form.

Curran huffed. “I can’t help you with that if you’re going to cover yourself up. C’mon, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you naked!” He followed Heinwald out of the tub, nearly sliding on the now wet bathroom floor. The scholar looked back at his partner.

“We’ve spent long enough in here. Wouldn’t you like to move this to my bed?” It was rare for him to be so forward. Curran blinked, about to follow Heinwald out of the bathroom when he realized something.  
  
“Wait a minute—I didn’t even bring a towel in here, did I?” Heinwald’s laughter echoed from the hall. “You should have warned me!”  
  
“Come on, dear, it’s not like there’s anyone around to see you.”  
  
  
  
  
  
There was a familiar feeling when he first entered the Obscura. Years had passed since the incident—he was older now, a pronounced limp from his numbed leg, hair streaked with white from physical and mental stress. Despite this, everything in the air seemed nostalgic—the smell, the taste, the ambient sounds. He could see the dragon this time, with its all-encompassing presence. When the dragon noticed him, a terrible grin formed on its jaws, and it laughed with a sound like rumbling thunder.


	2. of the Inquisitor

“I’m a mess. I’m sorry.”  
  
Curran rested his head in his partner’s lap, looking away from his gaze. He wouldn’t be surprised if tonight was the final straw, if Heinwald would finally take the opportunity to leave his sorry ass and find some guy who actually had his shit together. Ilia knows he deserved that much.

“Don’t move, I haven’t cleaned up this side of your face yet,” Curran winced as Heinwald wiped the rag against his bloodied cheek. “This looks like glass—what did they _do_ to you?”

 He was never good at finding the right words, and the influence of whiskey made it all the more difficult. “I started it,” he muttered, his voice muffled by his split lip. “They were blinding their own business and I didn’t like what I heard in their conversation. So I started getting on their case and…” he gestured to the damage on his face.

A sigh, then another dab with the rag. “That isn’t the whole story, is it? It’s not like you to attack unprovoked,” Curran groaned. Lying wasn’t his strong suit, and he knew that lying to Heinwald was futile. It was impossible to surprise the guy with a birthday gift, let alone sneak some emotional baggage around him.  
  
“It was about me again, wasn’t it?”  
  
Dammit.  
  
“Please don’t let them bother you, Curran. This sort of thing is inevitable if you’re a prominent political figure,” the inquisitor opened his mouth to speak, but Heinwald continued. “Plus, their criticisms won’t stop if you’re threatening them with an axe every time they dare to speak out against me.”  
  
“Calling you a ‘monster’ isn’t criticism, Hein.”

_Ah._

Ignoring Heinwald’s warning, Curran sat up and held a hand against his bleeding face. He’d been hurt worse in bar brawls before, but those were the times before he had Heinwald worrying about him. A glass bottle to the face was nothing compared to a being thrown through a table or window. No matter how much time he spent at Heinwald’s estate, it couldn’t change his nature. A brute was still a brute, no matter how much you dressed him up.

“I’m touched that you want to defend me from their insults, but I’d rather you come home in one piece, alright?” He pulled Curran’s face down to meet his own, placing a kiss on his injured cheekbone.

 

 

 

 

 

The church never had much information on his family. He was surrendered to the church as an infant—one of the countless babies growing up in one of the churches orphanages—and anything that could have made his parents memorable to the monks who were by the door that night had been lost in the process of finding him a good nursery. It wasn’t a unique situation for church employees. When wars were being fought and towns were being ravaged, the church seemed to be the safest place for children to grow up. Even if the chance of them being reunited with their parents was infinitesimally low, it was more appealing for an orphan to have a cozy upbringing with other children than to have memories of their parents’ gruesome deaths.

Curran had been marked as a future inquisitor when he was only twelve. He had impressed the priests at the church he grew up in with his unrelenting faith in Ilia. He was convinced that he would be dead were it not for her divine intervention. The night he was surrendered to the church was unseasonably cold, and it took the monks a few minutes to realize he was there. He had been run over by a horse and cart as a toddler, only to remain untouched by the hooves and wheels passing over his head. He had fallen into an icy pond when out with his fellow orphans and managed to pull himself onto dry land before they arrived with help. He _should_ have been dead by now, but all of those miraculous saves meant that the goddess had seen his potential to spread her gospel, and that that had kept him alive.

 

 

 

 

 

“Can’t you just heal this with magic or something?” Whatever Heinwald was disinfecting his wounds with stung. Curran winced as his partner sprayed some more of it onto one of his open wounds.  
  
“I could, but I don’t have a source right now,” He couldn’t hide his smirk from Curran even if he tried. “These wounds look messy, but they aren’t deep. They’ll heal in a less than a week.” Patting some gauze to the cut, he gingerly taped a bandage around it, brushing his finger against it to make sure it was in place.  
  
It wasn’t the first time Curran came back to the manor reeking of alcohol. The bruises and stains from bar fights weren’t always present, but the solemn moods they brought lingered each time he returned. Heinwald had realized it was starting to become an issue, but it was a problem without a simple solution. Curran would drink by his side in the manor, quietly, safely, and never over-indulging. They would debate (something they didn’t need alcohol for in the first place), but things never got too heated, and they would end up apologizing and falling asleep in one another’s arms.  
  
The issue, it seemed, was the setting.  
  
He would drink at pubs with Heinwald by his side, leaving as a mess who couldn’t walk a straight line and needing the shorter man’s arm to steady him. He would drink when he wasn’t with him, arriving at the door of his manor at ridiculous hours in the morning, usually escorted by a policeman. Heinwald remembered one incident when they split for an investigation, only to find Curran passed out in the tavern wherein he had stated that he would ask for information. It was easy enough to avoid the welcoming light of a public house when they were together, but when he was alone there was no telling if he’d come home in a boozy stupor.  
  
At least he was pretty cognizant, this time.  
  
“I’m worried about you, Curran,” It was rare to hear such sincere concern come from Heinwald. It made Curran nervous. “Every time you go out drinking, you come back beaten, inebriated, or both. I…” He paused, picking his words carefully. “I wish this wasn’t the case.”

 Curran coughed. “It’s not that simple, y’know?”  
  
  
  
  
  
He was seventeen when he was picked for his first mission. He was excited—most inquisitors had to wait until they were in their twenties! “This case involves a cult in a mid-sized village,” the bishop told him during the briefing, “So we’re deploying a lot of inquisitors so you aren’t outnumbered. You’re a little green for something of this caliber, but as long as you listen to your superiors you should be safe.”  
  
No words could have prepared him for what he had seen.  
  
The girl on the altar couldn’t have been older than ten. She was heavily sedated, but conscious. A priest raised his arm above her, loudly proclaiming that Ilia had forsaken their village due to her parents’ infidelity towards each other. That sacrificing this _child_ would heal their elderly and restore their crops.  
  
He would never forget the sound of the dagger plunging into her chest. Her arms twitched, but she had been too drugged to react to the blade. The inquisitors hidden in the congregation began to rush the stage, throwing the priest to the ground. Curran took his place by the door, ready to strong-arm anyone who had tried to exit. Every villager attending this ceremony was complacent in the priest’s heresy, as far as the church was concerned.  
  
The chaos didn’t last that long. The priest surrendered quickly, and the more seasoned inquisitors had corralled the villagers into their prison wagons. Curran’s eyes were still glued on the girl’s limp body, her simple blouse stained a deep crimson. No one had bothered to move her during the arrests.  


  
“Why didn’t anyone stop him?” He was the youngest person at the tavern that night, and the only one bringing up the mission. A few of the inquisitors glared at him, a few others laughed. The one sitting next to him ruffled his hair with her calloused hand, giving him a warm smile.  
  
“The job’s not about saving people, kid. It’s about keeping the belief in Ilia strong. It’s about preventing whack jobs like that priest from sullying her name.”  
  
“If you wanted to save people, you should have joined the clergy instead…” another inquisitor muttered from his mug.  
  
The woman at Curran’s side turned to her fellow inquisitor, a severe frown on her lips. “Oh come on, Roscoe. You remember your first mission, right?” She turned back to Curran, again trying to reassure him. “It gets easier, kid. We were all rookies at one point.”  
  
He didn’t want to believe that watching children getting killed would ‘get easier’.  
  
  
  
  


He was an extrovert, and as much as he loved spending time in the manor with Heinwald, he would get antsy if his partner was his only social contact in a while. Pubs weren’t the only places he frequented—he’d go to markets, parks—hell, he’d even hang around the infirmaries if he found himself wanting for conversation. But conversation was easiest when alcohol was involved, and taverns were full of those open to conversation.  
  
Curran never went into a tavern with the intention of getting in a fight, but trouble always seemed to follow him. Even before he became involved with a nobleman, he would attract unwanted attention. There were those who had their loved ones killed by his fellow inquisitors (his condolences), people who wanted to argue with him about the logistics of Ilia’s teachings (not his responsibility), and, most often, muggers who thought a church employee would be rich (oh, if only). He would pay the barkeep for reparations—shattered glasses, broken furniture, busted windows—and stumble back to his room in the church, waiting until the following morning to nurse his throbbing head and bloodied knuckles.  
  
  
  
Heinwald’s disappointment was palpable. He and the scholar would tease each other relentlessly over things that some might continue a step too far—his unfailing belief in his goddess was as much a target as his partner’s limp—but Curran’s drinking was something that Heinwald was noticeably silent about. He could feel his partner’s gaze studying the injuries on his face, but he remained quiet.  
  
“…Look, you have every right to be angry at me. You _should_ be angry with me,” Heinwald jumped at his partner’s voice breaking the silence, “…but can you at least talk to me about it? I’d prefer to have you yell at me than to give me the cold smoulder.” He wanted to feel the sting of his words. Heinwald’s mouth twisted, his expression uncertain.

“’Angry’ is too simple to describe my feelings. I’m angry, yes, but I’m also concerned about you. I want to help, but I’m not entirely sure how to do that,” Curran’s cheeks reddened. “Of course, you’ve yet to present me with a mystery I can’t solve.” Something about the way he phrased it rubbed Curran the wrong way.  
  
“My problems aren’t just mysteries for you to solve, Heinwald!” He didn’t intend to scream it so loudly. His voice had rattled Heinwald, who took a step back. “Don’t… don’t treat me like I’m some sort of mystery novel or puzzle box! I’ve struggled with this for years. You can’t just ‘solve’ me.” Curran’s voice softened, but his partner’s eyes were wide and his fingers trembling.  
  
“I’m… I’m so sorry,” He could barely look Curran in the eye, turning instead to face the floor. “That was… selfish for me to say. I don’t know what you’re struggling with, I just know how you are after you’ve been at the pub all night…” his voice was barely a whisper, choosing his words deliberately. “…I just want to help you, Curran.”  
  
The inquisitor’s shoulders relaxed. “No, look, I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I’m sorry for that,” it was stilted, but it seemed to calm his partner down a little. “I know you want to help… I just don’t know _why_. If I were you, I would have given up on me by now.” A forced laugh, one that Heinwald didn’t return in kind. “Look, I’m a big dumb idiot who drinks until he wants to fight people. And I’m enough of a lout that I’ll beat someone’s face in when I’m drunk enough. You’re… not. You deserve better than me, and I’m not sure why you’re so dedicated to making me feel better.”  
  
A few seconds passed before Heinwald started to speak, a weak smile on his lips as he said words that he rarely spoke, “Because I love you, Curran.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wasn’t sure which of his fellow inquisitors had given him his first mug of beer. It was probably a celebratory round of drinks—the other inquisitors weren’t usually as bothered by some of the missions as he was—but he remembered it being the first night in a while that he slept through without any nightmares.  
  
They told him that his first mission was a fluke. “Most of them aren’t like that, Curran. Most of the time you’re just asking a guy some questions and snoop around a bit.” It was true—most of his cases were forgettable—but that just made the serious ones stand out more.  
  
He had never realized that some people could be so terrible. Human sacrifices, sex trafficking, even one case where a priestess’ private quarters were decorated with the embalmed corpses of her ancillaries. Curran wished he wasn’t as affected by those, that he could just forget them and not have those images haunt him. The closest cure he had was drinking until he was sore and passing out, too dead to the world to hear children calling to him for help or screaming in agony as daggers were plunged into their little bodies.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was never long before they recovered from an argument. Even if they were screaming at each other or in tears, they would end up in each other’s arms—crying, apologizing, and whispering sweetly into each other’s ears.  
  
“You’re too kind to me…” Curran stroked his hand through Heinwald’s hair, their cheeks touching.

“Stop saying that,” Heinwald answered, sighing. “You put up with enough of my prying and interrogating that I’d hardly consider myself ‘kind’ to you.” He would always get a little huffy when Curran would praise him, something that Curran found hilarious and endearing. He pulled the mage closer, playfully nuzzling his cheek.  
  
“Then I guess we just deserve each other, then.”


End file.
